As a joke, Northampton artists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird come up with some tall Turtles with sick ninja skills. They are so taken by the wacky looking violent reptiles they decide to create a one-shot comic about these mutant turtle ninjas. The origin story goes: a canister of weird goo flies off a truck, bounces off a boy’s head, and smashes into a bowl of baby turtles. The bowl and the boys fall into the sewer where a rat comes over to check out the little guys crawling around in the can-ooze — the whole group then morph into human-sized crime-fighting, warrior animals. The story is a PG-13-level gritty.
MARCH, 1984: Eastman and Laird create Mirage Studios and print 3,000 copies of their first comic book, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and take out an ad for the books in the trade publication Comics Buyer’s Guide Magazine. The comics sell out in weeks and the men print 6,000 more, which also sell out.
JANUARY, 1985: Although Eastman and Laird had only planned on making one TMNT comic book, the comic’s success encourages them to make another. About 15,000 copies of #2 are printed this month. More stories in the series are added.
1986: Playmates Toys expresses interest in producing TMNT action figures. To fit the toymakers, the Turtles clean up their act a bit and tone down the violence and cursing. The crassness is replaced with pizza and jokes.
1988: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, those heroes in a half-shell (Turtle Power!), make their Saturday morning cartoon debut.
1990: The live-action film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hits the big screen.
1991: Following up on the success of the first film, Secret of the Ooze hits the theaters.
1993: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is released to theaters.
1995: Mirage Studios prints its final TMNT comic. In total the studio produces 75 regular issues as well as dozens of mini-series, one-shots, and limited series spin-offs during the Turtles’ run.
1996: The Turtles move to Image Comics for 13 issues and a mini-series.
The Turtles’ TV cartoon series comes to an end after 188 episodes.
1997: Saban Entertainment produces a live-action TV series based on the Turtles, Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation. The show features a fifth turtle, Venus de Milo, a girl who, the show explains, had been forgotten up to that point!
After nearly a decade, Playmates stops production of TMNT toys. In all the company produced around 400 TMNT figures as well as dozens of vehicles and playsets.
1998: Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation is cancelled.
1999: Image Comics cancels the Turtles comics.
2000: Co-creator Kevin Eastman sells his stake in the Turtles to co-creator Peter Laird.
2001: Turtles are back at Mirage Studios.
2003: 4Kids Entertainment produces an animated Turtles series with co-creator Laird. The end product is a Turtles characters more in-sync with the original comics.
2007: TMNT, a computer-animated Turtles film is released.
2009: The 4Kids’ Turtles series is cancelled. Laird sells the rights to the Turtles to Viacom.
2010: Mirage Studios ends its latest series of the Turtles, having completed 30 issues in print and one online-only publication.
2011: IDW studio comes out with a new TMNT comic featuring artwork by co-creator Eastman.
2012: Viacom, through its subsidiary Nickelodeon, releases a CGI cartoon Turtles show.
2014: A live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie produced by Michael Bay is widely panned, but the Nick show carries on with Turtle fan power.
